59 Ex persona hominis assumpti. The language is scarcely accurate, but it must be remembered that the Conferences were written before the rise of the Nestorian heresy had shown the need for exactness of expression on the subject of the Incarnation. Compare the note on "Against Nestorius," Book III. c. iii.

60 S. Matt. xxvi. 39.

61 S. Matt. xviii. 11; xx. 28.

62 S. John x. 18.

63 Ps. xxxix. (xl.) 9.

64 1 John iii. 16.

65 Gal. i. 4.

66 Rom. viii. 32.

67 Is. liii. 7. (Lat.)

68 Gal. i. 1.

69 S. John ii. 19.

70 S. Matt. xxvi. 39.

71 "Non" though wanting in most mss. must be read in the text.

72 Reading "curvationis" with Petschenig: the text of Gazaeus has "orationis."

75 The observance of Epiphany can be traced back in the Christian Church to the second century, and, as Cassian tells us here, in the East (in which its observance apparently originated) it was in the first instance a double festival commemorating both the Nativity and the Baptism of our Lord. From the East its observance passed over to the West, where however the Nativity was already observed as a separate festival, and hence the special reference of Epiphany was somewhat altered, and the manifestation to the Magi was coupled with that at the Baptism: hence the plural Epiphaniorum dies. Meanwhile, as the West adopted the observance of this festival from the East, so the East followed the West in observing a separate feast of the Nativity. Cassian's words show us that when he wrote the two festivals were both observed separately in the West, though apparently not yet (to the best of his belief) in the East, but the language of a homily by S. Chrysostom (Vol. ii. p. 354 Ed. Montfaucon) delivered in a.d.. 386 shows that the separation of the two festivals had already begun at Antioch, and all the evidence goes to show that "the Western plan was being gradually adopted in the period which we may roughly define as the last quarter of the 4th and the first quarter of the 5th century." Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Vol. i. p. 361. See further Origines du Culte Chrétien, par L'Abbé Duchesne, p 247 sq.

76 The "Festal letters" (e9rtastikai\ e0pistolai/, Euseb. VII. xx. xxi.) were delivered by the Bishop of Alexandria as Homilies, and then put into the form of an Epistle and sent round to all the churches of Egypt; and, according to some late writers, to the Bishops of all the principal sees, in accordance with a decision of the Council of Nicaea, in order to inform them of the right day on which Easter should be celebrated. Cassian here speaks of them as sent immediately after Epiphany, and this was certainly the time at which the announcement of the date of Easter was made in the West shortly after his day (so the Council of Orleans, Canon i., a.d. 541); that of Braga a.d.. 572, Canon ix., and that of Auxerre a.d.. 572, Canon ii.) but there is ample evidence in the Festal letters both of S. Athanasius and of S. Cyril that at Alexandria the homilies were preached on the previous Easter, and it is difficult to resist the inference that Cassian's memory is here at fault as to the exact time at which the incident related really occurred, and that he is transferring to Egypt the custom with which he was familiar in the West, assigning to the festival of Epiphany what really must have taken place at Easter.